Roger Waters is the most famous rock star to have publicly supported the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

A founder of Pink Floyd — a British rock group which has sold more than 250 million albums — Waters decided to become active in the international Palestinian solidarity movement following a trip to the West Bank in 2006. Shocked by the oppression that he witnessed, Waters spray-painted the words “we don’t need no thought control” — a line from one of his biggest hits — on Israel’s wall.

More recently, Waters has served as a juror on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an initiative aimed at drawing attention to how Western governments and companies aid Israel’s violations of international law. In that capacity, he addressed the United Nations during November last year.

Visiting Brussels for the tribunal’s final session, Waters said he would explore the idea of releasing a single urging musicians not to perform in Israel. He intends to discuss this project with Steven Van Zandt, the guitarist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, who assembled many well-known musicians to record Sun City, a protest song against apartheid in South Africa during the 1980s.

Comment viewing options

as much as I admire your stance, I don't understand how you can get it so wrong. Israel is the bastard love child of the UN, formally known as the League of Nations, the very organisation that facilitated the theft of Palestine from it's native Jewish and Arab population.
The UN and it's private military will do NOTHING to bring peace to the peoples of the Middle East, because it is waging war against them!
The total destruction and dismantling of the UN is the 1st step towards Peace in the Middle East and the rest of the World.

for and against boycotting Israel in the comments. Damn you smart DPers, lol.

Not sure where I lay. I have friends from Israel, that are business owners. And they do not endorse what their gov does. I'd hate it for people to boycott them just because of where they live.

But at the same time, I get it. We need to be more careful of our monetary votes. Perhaps a brilliant DPer can do the research and find out which businesses out of Israel are pro zionist and which ones are not?

How do we boycott Israel most effectively? Boycott the banks and the "right" Israeli corporations in USA and all over the world whose profits feed the war machine. Let's start with the AMA and the cancer "treatment" machine 60 billion anual industry scam. Radiation machines are a better place to start. Boycott suicidal Israeli cancer"treatments" that are forced on us at gunpoint, literally. Try and heal yourself with real cancer drugs in public....

Exposing the insidious, deceptive practices if this unfortunate yet deliberate scourge on the world would be a start.(I have Israeli friends that are humanitarians too, though) Exposing the forces behind its creation and the banks that are complicit in all this genocide would be a great day. I boycott yet reach out to Israels and Palestinians equally in this time of growing pains for all. I'm watching myself, and all my brothers suffering from secret biological weapons put in their food, air, water, and pills, by the same secretive mega powers. If we keep the internet free the criminals will continue to be exposed. Boycott Israel, absolutely. I will take a stand now and forever against those who have taken over our country's every power and turned it against it's creators in a form of slow death. most are not strong enough to admit this to themselves.

No need to inject race into the discussion -- you played that race card almost as fast as Sharpton or Jackson would have. :)

I'm not sure I agree with the South Africa boycott either. I'm not really inspired by the idea of punishing everyone in a nation for their government's corruption. Smacks of the same spirit as sanctions do. Wouldn't it be more powerful to perform in Israel (or, in the past, in South Africa) and express your point of view in a positive manner? Engage the culture instead of shun it.

It seems only the most recent comments actually grasped what this post was about. It wasn't about Pink Floyd or music.
*HINT*
There are these little red letters underneath the post you are supposed to click. Then you read the article. THEN you post what you thought about the article.

We didn't miss the whole point. Apparently YOU are missing the point of some of the lyrics we posted here. Try reading them and see if they don't fit the situation. Not everyone has to talk in black and white. Some of us see things in poetry.

I have been boycotting the apartheid state of Israel for several years now. I just wonder how many more Americans would join me if more of us had the courage to look at the overwhelming evidence for Israeli involvement in 9/11.

A good boycott movement in the GOP for the next 4 years would split the social conservatives.

The neocons would natural say that Israeli is our best friend in the word. That would be disputed. What Israel actual does would be shown, and although I hate to say it - while not everyone is concerned to what happens to Muslims, when it's shown they treat everyone that way including Christians, social conservatives would start to wake up.

Facts come before doctrine. Than some of the preachers that were on Ron Paul's side last election would come in with why their doctrine is wrong - and their supporting anti-christ.

That would nicely split the social conservative movement giving us a chunk, and just leave the chicken hawks in it.

—

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

especially when you consume it along with a fist full of mushrooms every weekend as a teenager.... now 20 years later songs like these 2 have come to form some of the foundational philosophy of a freeman!

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way.
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way.

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again.
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older,
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

Every year is getting shorter never seem to find the time.
Plans that either come to naught or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over,
Thought I'd something more to say

and i also said it was twenty years ago... but ill tell you one thing. i wouldnt change any of it. your experiences make you who you are, and i have had quite a wonderful time on this earth...

but regardless, you must of missed speech after speech of Dr Pauls where he discusses owning your own body, being able to eat or smoke some plants if you want to, and not expecting everyone to conform to your idea of morality....

did you miss those comments, did you not understand them? or are you just one of those who cant leave others alone?

Shine on You Crazy Diamond happens to be dedicated to Syd Barrett... one of the founding members... who upon consuming entirely too much LSD, committed himself to a mental asylum. I know pink floyd.

dont talk to me about drug use when it doesnt sound like you know the difference between an entheogen and an amphetamine...

if all you can do is parrot the same sh|t propaganda the media has been pushing for decades... you should move to Colorado or Washington state where there are obviously WAY more libertarians... maybe you'll learn something... expand your paradigm a little bit.

"To his eternal credit, Stevie Wonder called them [the gala’s organizers] up and said “I didn’t quite get it” [and canceled the performance]. This happened one week after I made a speech to the UN. Neither of these events were reported anywhere in the mainstream media in the United States of America."

Upvoted.

—

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

"Will you accept your second class status
A nation of waitresses and waiters
Will you mix their martinis
Will you stand still for it
Or will you take to the hills

When the cowboys and Arabs draw down
On each other at noon
In the cool dusty air of the city boardroom
Will you stand by a passive spectator
Of the market dictators
Will you discreetly withdraw
With your ear pressed to the boardroom door
Will you hear when the lion within you roars
Will you take to the hills

Will you stand, will you stand for it
Will you hear, ohhhh! ohhh! when the lion within you roars"